A Few Fun Finds Outside of My Area of Expertise

So I decided to make a quick post today just showing a few of the unusual things I've seen on my wanderings that I don't have much to say about.

First up, we have Hylatomus pileatus (pileated woodpecker), a normally shy bird which appeared to consider it a worthwhile trade to be closer to humans than regular comfort in order to get at the bugs in this dead log.

Hylatomus pileatus -- photographed in the Mont-Royal Park

This also happens to be the only time I've ever seen Hylatomus pileatus eating on the ground. This probably has more to do with the fact that most of its food is in standing tree trunks, rather than a particular habit or preference.

We also have Anaxyrus americanus, an american toad, which is very common in the area. I see toads all the time at the lake but rarely ones of this size (presumably the ones that manage to get this big, get this big because they're good at going unnoticed). I love the gold eyes of this species.

Anaxyrus americanus, photographed in the Upper Gatineau region

Finally, I would like to make an addendum to my post about Celithemis elisa (the calico pennant). At the time of posting, I had only gotten a picture of the male. I can now add a picture of the yellowy-beige female.

Celithemis elisa - male (image previously posted here)

And here is the female. She sports all the same markings, but in a different colour palette:

Celithemis elisa - female

Calico Pennant - Celithemis elisa

So a few years ago I spent a frustrating afternoon trying to photograph Celithemis elisa (calico pennant) dragonflies at my friend's cottage, from a kayak -- which is quite challenging. The best images I got of this species are in this post.

My husband and I went for a long walk yesterday along the trans Canada trail. The local portion of this trail is called le véloroute des draveurs in this region. Part of this trail goes along Lac du Castor Blanc, where I was lucky enough to come across a male Celithemis elisa and finally, finally get the photo I've wanted:

Celithemis elisa male

This species is distributed fairly broadly across North America (records map here) and is ranked as a species of least concern under the IUCN (which means there is no current evidence of threats against the populations) [1].

The short stretch of the trail that we enjoyed yesterday was lined with huge and delicious wild strawberries. It is a pleasant section of the trail for walking and cycling. We stopped by the gazebo on the Lac du Castor Blanc for a while and just watched the water for a while. I would definitely recommend this trail to others.

My husband and I will be travelling back to Montreal today so I'm not going to spend a lot of time writing up a blog post. We'll be back to the regular programming once I get settled back in Montreal.

Dragonflies - Odonata - Libellules

So when I was at my friend's cottage, I went out kayaking on the river. There was a small inlet not far downstream of us, where I found an unbelievable variety of dragonflies, many of which I had never seen before. The two most abundant types were a red one I have finally been able to identify as the calico pennant, Celithemis elisa.  The second is a black one with ice-blue markings, which I believe is the chalk-fronted corporal, Ladona julia. There were also quite a lot of monstrously huge dragonflies with ultra blue abdomens and dark green thoraxes which I didn't get a chance to photograph; they never seemed to land anywhere. I will say tentatively that they were probably common green darner dragonflies.

These dragonflies were incredibly difficult to photograph but I'm glad I succeeded in getting even these few shots.

C. elisa lateral view

I found this particular dragonfly to be a stunningly beautiful creature. I like this shot a great deal because it shows just how vibrantly red it is.

C. elisa top view

My kayak was unfortunately drifting, and you can see from the shadows of my hands that I was already reaching a point where I could simply not reach with my right hand anymore when I took this shot. I was so disappointed to see that I had clipped the wings on one side in this photo, which is otherwise perfect. I suppose I'll just have to try again sometime. At least in this photo the wing patterns are very clear. Aside from the lower wing near the thorax, the spots are not quite red, looking more muted and brownish to me.

 L. julia

I think at this moment I really must give my thanks to the folks over at Discover Life, who regularly make it possible for me to identify fauna that I wouldn't be able to without their excellent searching tool. Super cool resource, very usable. It's my go-to resource for identifying interesting insects.